Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that Heather Qin‘s chapbook, Nomad, was selected by Rita Mookerjee as the winner of our annual e-chapbook contest. Heather will receive $200 and publication.
Heather Qin (she/her) is a writer from New Jersey. A Best of the Net nominee, her work has been recognized by The New York Times, Narrative, and Hollins University, and can be found or forthcoming in Sine Theta Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and Diode, among others. Besides writing, Heather loves classical music and reading.
We are also excited to announce that Moni Brar’s chapbook, Migrant Wish, was this year’s Editor’s Choice. Moni will receive $100 as well as publication.
Moni Brar was born in rural Punjab and raised on the land of the Tse’Khene peoples. Hailing from a long a lineage of illiterate subsistence farmers, she spends much of her time contemplating land, loss, language, and longing. She is the recipient of a Banff Centre Residency, the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal, the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, and The Fiddlehead’s Poetry Prize. Her writing appears in Best Canadian Poetry, The Literary Review of Canada, Passages North, and elsewhere. She believes art contains the possibility of healing. Instagram: @monibrar
Zaynab Bobi’s Sixteen Songs of Loss was also selected for publication.
The entire Sundress team would like to thank Rita Mookerjee for serving as this year’s judge.
Rita Mookerjee is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University. In 2020, she was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Kingston, Jamaica. She is the author of False Offering, forthcoming from JackLeg Press (Fall 2023). Her poems can be found in The Baltimore Review, New Orleans Review, The Offing, Poet Lore, and Vassar Review. She edits poetry at Split Lip Magazine and Honey Literary.
We would also like to thank everyone who sent in their work. Finalists and semi-finalists include:
Finalists
Torey Akers’ Good-Time Girl
Madeleine Bazil, Snake Season
Zaynab Bobi, Sixteen Songs of Loss*
Michael Colbert, Are Bisexual Men Real: Case Studies
Devaki Devay, IT ISN’T IN MY HEAD BUT IT IS IN A FIELD
Griffin Epstein, i don’t believe in sex
Javeria Hasnain, Sin Poems
Crystal Ignatowski, Rabbit Hole
Bryan Okwesili, PRAYER AT THE FEET OF A HOMOPHOBE WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER
Sara Puotinen, Mood Rings
Fiona Stanton, The Voluptuary
Rachel Trousdale, A Long List of Small Mercies
Ellen Welcker, WHICH THE HORSE
Semi-finalists
Owólabi Aboyade, Lee, Young Lee
Sage Agee, Manifesting Boyhood
Colleen Alles, Alewives Returning
Jazmine Aluma, RAW TO THE TOUCH
Susan Barry-Schulz, Prednisone Season
Noah Benham, a night journey into day
Ashley Bunn, living amends
Finnian Burnett, Red Shirts Sometimes Survive
Kristen DeBeasi, A Hallelujah Escaping
Chiara Di Lello, Tender
Cat Dixon, Daring to Stay Adrift
Sheila Dong, The Monsterchild Primer
Emily Duffy, Miradouros
Kristin Emanual, Rescuing Chimera
Gabriela Frank, midday:abyssal
Jade Gaynor, GOD & MEN & THE MOON & SUCH
Lynn Gilbert, My Ear is a Magnet for Music
Cat Green, Just Stay Alive
Dina Greenberg, Prayers for the Lost and for the Living
Sarah Herrin, Your Body Is A Crime Scene
Emily Kiernan, Fissions
Meg Kuyatt, Obsolete Hill
Charlotte McManus, Long Fingers
Casey Moore, Sturdy
Sodïq Oyèkànmí, a theatre of wounds
Max Pasakorn, On Mothers, Drag Queens and Gold
Michelle Petty-Grue, Blue Velvet Couch
Heather Pulido, Good Damage
Laura Ring, Last Seen Leaving
Shei Sanchez, Ruminations of a Nomad
Mervyn Seivwright, Chasing Cherry Blossoms
Alex Shapiro, The Chamber of Commerce
Ashley Steineger, In the End Only This
Para Vadhahong, From Star to Island
Laura Vazquez, Downtown Puerto Rico
Natasha Wolkwitz, Mess Choir
Kenton Yee, The Octopus of Happiness
* Selected for publications
Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that Hannah V. Warren with her chapbook, [re]construction of the necromancer, was selected by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello as the winner of Sundress Publications’ eighth annual chapbook competition. 
This year’s winner is Lisa Kwong for the poem “Searching for Wonton Soup.”
and familiar tales to distill the most complex family dynamics: a daughter reckons with her mother meeting her lover in the language of a math textbook. Adam and Eve become a husband and wife who ‘always did encourage each other’s bad behavior.’ In the final story, the act of writing conflates with the creation of the universe, our narrator critiquing the work of a god: ‘I liked how in your first draft everything revolved around the Earth. That makes a lot more sense if the people there are going to be important.’ And Burgess shows us the importance of all people, encouraging empathy and the desire to get to know every character, every person, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. Burgess writes with an honesty so clear it aches. Wind on the Moon is one of those books you can’t wait to share with everyone you love.”
“epithalamium is an incredible dancer working beautifully, relentlessly, spasmodically on a stage that was constructed small enough that the artist must at some point jump into the crowd to make their work the whole scene. The poems in this chapbook are dynamic and unique. The language, music, and energy used caught me off guard many times, and I can think of no better goals than that for poetry. None of these poems are “that blushing thing.” All of them are working and questioning the archetypes and mythologies that deserve to be questioned, and through that process something larger emerges. Through that process we learn to “forget stardust. / think transit. think love.” This chapbook approaches the real world with an otherworldly understanding of its machinations, and despite that deep look into our workings it emerges with a passionate idea of where this could all be headed.”